News from Opening Bell

In his column for the New York Times (3/31, Subscription Publication), Paul Krugman that the belief that the nation “suffers from a severe ‘skills gap’ is one of those things that everyone important knows must be true, because everyone they know says it’s true,” but really is a “zombie idea — an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die.” Unfortunately, Krugman writes, the “skills myth” is “having dire effects on real-world policy,” as there is little focus on “disastrously wrongheaded fiscal policy and inadequate action” by the Fed. Krugman says that by “blaming workers for their own plight, the skills myth shifts attention away from the spectacle of soaring profits and bonuses even as employment and wages stagnate.”